


What Brothers Are For

by LunaDeSangre



Series: Little Miracles [10]
Category: Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Oz (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Twins, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-25
Updated: 2014-09-25
Packaged: 2018-02-18 16:42:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2355362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LunaDeSangre/pseuds/LunaDeSangre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ryan would bet a lot Brian’s unearthed some kind of instruction manual for newly-discovered brothers and found in big bold writing <i>Cheer him up when he’s sick</i>. Although maybe <i>and dying of breast cancer</i> wouldn't be part of the instructions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Brothers Are For

Brian only finds out about the cancer because Mukada calls him – somehow, he’s left his phone number as Ryan’s twin brother, newly in town again. He’s smarter than Ryan’s thought, making sure no one finds out what he does for a living – and Ryan’s pretty sure it’s for his sake, not Brian’s own. Brian gets there as soon as he can – and he’s pissed. Pissed that Ryan doesn’t want to live, because that’s what Mukada told him. And of course, he wants to know _why_.

And Ryan feels fucking guilty, instantly. It’s almost as scary as the disease, how much he cares what Brian thinks.

“Shannon and Cyril, Ryan,” Brian insists, first thing, no hellos, “they’d miss you. Your aunt Brenda would miss you. _I’d_ miss you. So what the hell are you thinking?” (Tactfully not mentioning his – _their_ father, because despite not having grown up with the man, Brian knows better. Not mentioning their real mother either, because God only knows where she is.)

Ryan can’t quite meet his eyes – not without glaring or giving away way too much. “It’s not like they see me everyday or anything,” he grits out.

“You’ll get out,” Brian tells him. Flatly, like it’s a fact, an undeniable truth.

Ryan _glares_ at him – because he’s not going to fucking cry. “In _eleven years_. _Maybe_. Cancer or a shank, what’s the difference? You know what my odds are anyway?” And before Brian can answer, because he looks angry, stricken and alarmed all at once: “You _know_ what my odds are. Well, divide them by a fucking million, because _that_ fucking cancer? It’s _a chick’s fucking cancer_. I get the operation, every single fucktard in here is gonna know about it, there’s no fucking secrets in this place. And then, you know what’ll happen? Fuck, _you know_ what’ll happen. And I’d rather die. I don’t want to die, Brian, but fuck, I can’t, I really can’t, I’d rather be dead –”

And fucking hell, but thank Christ for the private room, because his eyes fucking burn and his voice isn’t exactly steady and he’s not really sure what Brian is saying (something like _you’re not going to die, you’ll be fine, nobody will know, I’ll take care of it and you’ll be fine, trust me Ryan, trust me_ ) – only that his twin is warm and steady and holding him up, tightly. “– fuck, Brian,” he hears himself say, unable to stop, “I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die –” and then his throat closes up too badly and he can’t stop shaking and he can’t even remember ever breaking down this badly. (Not even when his baby sister died.)

Cyril would hold him and tease him afterwards. Brian just holds him. Maybe that’s why it comes out – Ryan certainly didn’t mean to say it. He’s not even sure how he thought it in the first place. It’s nothing but a fucking whisper, slipping out without thought in between fucking sobs as Ryan clings to Brian like, well, a dying man. It’s only vaguely shaped but intense and _horrible_ , born out of the nightmarish mixture of his Dad’s unmitigated homophobia, Ryan’s perpetually skinny constitution and tendency to be everyone’s type without trying – even ( _especially_ ) in here – and his growing obsession with Miguel Alvarez: something about _deserving a fag disease_ , about _maybe Dad_ being _right after all_ , “the sick fuck, it’ll make his day to hear I’m dead –”

“Ryan,” Brian shakes him a bit to make him snap out of it, forehead creasing, but he doesn’t let go of him when he asks: “why the hell would you think you deserve it?”

Ryan freezes. It’s only now that he realizes what he’s said – realizes what he’s been thinking. Why he’d prefer dying. And how stupid, and utterly terrifying that is. Because he’s not like that. (His Dad is.) “It’s nothing,” he says, sobering up. Wiping his nose and cheeks. Closing down. (But not pulling away either. He can’t do that.) His brain is running around in circles in complete panic. He can’t think. He can’t _think_.

“Ryan,” Brian tells him gently ( _like taming a terrified feral kitten_ his brain cackles), “I’m _your brother_. You can tell me _anything_.”

“There’s this guy –” Ryan blurts out before he can stop himself, lured, then he goes blank. He couldn’t continue even if he wanted to: how to sum up the enigma that is Miguel Alvarez and the horrifyingly confusing effect he has on Ryan’s brain _in a coherent sentence_? It’s absolutely impossible.

Brian doesn’t blink, still doesn’t let go. “You...”

“No,” Ryan cuts him off, and it comes out downright bitter and vicious because he’s suddenly _so_ angry – at himself, Brian, his Dad, his own brain, _everything_ –, “I’m _not_ a _fag_. I’ve been here for over a year and I’ve _never_ taken it up the ass, you hear? And I have no intention to! I don’t fucking deserve this shit!” Because he’s _not_ a fag, he’s _not_.

“Do you thinks that _matters_?” Brian asks him, disbelieving and suddenly just as intense and clutching his upper arms, “Ryan, cancer has _nothing_ to do with sexuality, _nothing_. It’s just bad luck, nothing else.”

And yeah, okay, maybe he has a point, and maybe Ryan’s being a little bit hysterical: distantly, a part of him is aware that all this shit is his Dad talking. Ryan has more sense. Usually. When he can think properly. The anger vanishes just as suddenly as it came, and all that’s left is bone-deep exhaustion. His eyes are slightly blurry again. He bites his lower lip, _hard_ , out of words and trying to ground himself.

Brian cuts him off before he can say anything else, grip softening: “And it doesn’t matter anyway, because you’re going to be fine, you’ll see.” Matter of fact again, like he can make everything okay just by saying it will be.

Right then, Ryan wants nothing more than to believe him. (He thinks it must be what being a little brother feels like. It’s new and stupid and unreasonable and _impossible_ , but it’s warm and it’s safe. He wants to cling and never let go.)


End file.
